


One Other Gaudy Night

by recoveringrabbit



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, and dancing, but it's a 1930s Oxford AU, just misogyny, so there is no evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 07:24:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3801793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Fitz attends an awards gala.</p><p>A 1930s Oxford AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Other Gaudy Night

The Oxford University Chemistry Society had spared no expense their Trinity Term Social, plundering the treasury to rent out the ballroom of the Mitre Hotel. An ordinary social was usually satisfied with better than usual wine and a gramophone in their usual rooms, but this was a gala affair, the pinnacle of the academic year, the last hurrah for many of the members, and the Society was determined to make it one to remember. They planned a full dinner, dancing with music by the hotel’s orchestra, speeches from the stars of the matriculating class, and handsome awards presented to a deserving few members.  It was Oxford, so glamour was difficult, but with careful decoration and a firm insistence on formalwear they had managed to throw a party that would not be out of place in the Society pages of the _Times_. Fitz, squirming uncomfortably in his slightly-too-small dinner jacket, felt vaguely like an elephant at a meeting of moles. For one thing, he was the only engineer in a room full of chemists; for another he was literally the only person here not wearing one of the long black gowns and jaunty hats that denoted a member of the University. When he got up to pull Simmons’s chair out so she could make her way to the rostrum to accept her award, a woman at the next table had asked him to bring more champagne. It didn’t matter, though. For her, he would happily put up with much worse than being mistaken for a waiter. For her, he would do just about anything.

As the Society’s president continued heaping accolades on her work, Simmons caught his eye and smiled. He returned the grin, so proud of her he could burst. It was high time the Society recognized her; she might be a female undergraduate at a poorly funded college, but she was putting out work far beyond the skill level of her peers and most of the tutors. She deserved all this and more. They could throw a party to do nothing but celebrate Jemma Simmons and he still might not be satisfied.

She thanked the president prettily and took his place at the podium just long enough to say “I’m fully cognizant of the honour and thank you very much” before making her way back down. Under the thundering applause, Fitz heard the woman behind him say to her escort, “She can’t really be as smart as all that, can she? Not when she’s so pretty. I’ll bet she’s carrying on with the president.”

He turned around, about to lambaste the speaker, but was fortunately stopped by the escort’s correction. “Being pretty’s an accident; she really is that brilliant. Damned depressing if you ask me. The gods just smile on some people.”

“Anyway,” someone else said, “the only thing she cares about is science.”

Not quite true, Fitz thought, as Simmons was also fond of her parents and crocuses and tea with buttered toast and Victorian novels, but science was so far above these that it may as well have been the only thing. And then she sat back down beside him and his world shrunk to her eyes, her laugh, the smell of her hair, and he forgot the ill-mannered people behind him. It always happened that way around her; it was the natural result of a list which went _Jemma Simmons_ and then, distantly, _everything else_.

After a few brief closing remarks, the president announced dancing and the tables cleared out slowly. Simmons made no move to get up, instead turning towards him and resting her chin in her hand. “Thank God that’s over.”

“You were wonderful.”

She laughed like bells. “I hardly said three words.”

 _You’re always wonderful_ , he thought. “Much the better that way. I thought the man before you would never stop talking.”

“Lord, Blake.” She rolled her eyes. “His work is unexceptional, if solid, but he talks about it like he’s found a new element. I avoid him whenever possible.”

“Dull?”

“Terribly! Sometimes, Fitz, I think you’re the only interesting man on earth.”

He ducked his head in a futile attempt to hide the redness he could feel spreading across his face. “Einstein is pretty interesting, and Planck.”

“The only interesting man I know, then.”

To other people that probably wouldn’t be a compliment, but to him it was darn near best thing she could say. When paired with that face she was giving him—equal parts exasperation and fondness—Fitz extrapolated from the data and allowed himself, for half a second, a place on the list between crocuses and tea. Glowing with the warmth of it, he was about to mock someone else when a polite cough caused them both to look up sharply. A waiter hovered over their shoulders apologetically. “Pardon me sir, madam, but we need to clear the room.”

They reluctantly got up and made their way towards the ballroom, her hand tucked into his elbow. “Here comes the dull part of the evening for you, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ll try and introduce you to nice people.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Making ghastly conversation with the girlfriends of men I’ve gone with in the past, making slightly more interesting conversation with tutors, dancing a little I expect. Things I’d happily get out of doing if I could, and I’d hate for you to have to stand there like a racing pony. There’s heaps of people here who will be interested in your work.”

The Mitre may have been the grandest hotel in Oxford, but it was still a small building in a cramped city and the ballroom had scarcely enough room for the orchestra and a dance floor, never mind the scores of people who didn’t care to dance. The edges of the room were nearly wall-to-wall people, a black-gowned mass churning and seething as they lunged after the trays of champagne and bawled to be heard over the music. It hit Fitz like a clap of thunder; only the tether of Simmons’s hand on his elbow kept him from turning heel and bolting. Unconcerned by the noise, she gripped his arm with her other hand and pushed up on her toes, using him as leverage as she tried to peer over the crowd. He smirked, finding the little-girl way she craned her neck to see better adorable. “I know I’m shorter than most men, but I’m still taller than you are.”

“Yes, but you don’t know who to look for.” Her gaze stopped sweeping and she smacked his arm lightly in triumph. “There’s Dr. Banner. You simply must meet him.”

“Where?” he asked, unable to see the famed tutor anywhere.

“By the orchestra on the other side.”

“All the way over there? Simmons, can’t we find someone interesting on this side of the room?”

“Oh, Fitz!” She rolled her eyes and dropped back onto her heels, sliding her hand down his arm to grip his. “Come on.”

He went without protest—he would follow her worse places than through an academic mob, even without her hand in his shooting sparks up his spine—and they wove their way through the crowded ballroom, stopping what seemed like every two feet to accept the variegated congratulations of her peers and professors. Most everyone wanted to stop and chat, gushing out meaningless compliments that either meant the speaker had no idea what her work entailed or he (it was always a bad-tempered he) knew exactly what it was all about and was disgusted he hadn’t come up with it first. Fitz had a hard time not breaking in to set things straight, but Simmons merely accepted them all with the same gracious smile. He didn’t know how she did it, only that she was obviously a better person than he was. But that was nothing new.

Detaching herself from a particularly enthusiastic well-wisher, she turned to him with a fixed grin that was one jaw clench away from a grimace. “How am I doing?”

“Marvelously,” he said, not sure what she meant but certain of his answer.

“I’ve been practicing humble responses—goodness knows I’ve deserved this recognition the last two years as well, but one can’t really say ‘yes, thank you, but my work this year was nothing compared to last,’ can one?”

“Well, if one deserves it.”

“Not even then.”   

By the time they reached Dr. Banner, he was deep in conversation with someone Simmons introduced as the dean of All Souls and a blonde woman who towered over all four of them. “My tutor, Miss Morse,” Simmons explained. “Miss Morse, this is Mr. Fitz.”

Miss Morse turned to Simmons with one eyebrow raised significantly. “Oh, the famous Mr. Fitz!”

His handshake stalled mid-air and he looked quickly at Simmons, confused. “You’ve heard of me?”

Simmons’s eyes went wide and she shook her head, sentences tumbling over each other nervously. “Not Mr. Fitz, Miss Morse, you’re thinking of somebody else, Mr.— Mr. Timms perhaps. Mr. Fitz is an engineer.”

Mr. Timms was not a name familiar to Fitz, but a mistake made more sense than that Simmons’s idol should have heard enough about him to call him ‘famous’. “Oh, well,” Miss Morse said, her sharp gaze not leaving Simmons, “my mistake.”

“Well, I think I’ve heard of you.” Dr. Banner stepped into the space and completed the handshake. “You work for my friend Tony Stark, don’t you?”

Reeling from the idea that the great Tony Stark might possibly have noticed him enough to mention him to his friends, Fitz nodded. Simmons took his arm again, shining with pleasure. “He’s only been at Stark a year and he’s already been made head of his department. You should see some of his prototypes; there hasn’t been anything as exciting for a decade at least.”

“Simmons, stop,” he said, ears flushing.

The dean shook his hand absently before turning to Simmons. “Miss Simmons, I think I speak for my colleagues when I say that we have seldom seen undergraduate research with such promise. I did have a question about your recently published paper, though, if you don’t mind talking shop?”

“Not at all,” she said, “I love talking shop whenever possible.”

“She really does,” Fitz said, “I’ve seen her collar people in the corner of Selfridge’s to explain why they really shouldn’t be reading that particular scientific treatise.”

The group laughed, easing into a highly technical discussion of which Fitz understood about 85 percent despite the fact that Simmons had sought his input and opinion throughout the entire process. He didn’t offer much, content to watch her as she more than held her own against these three brilliant scholars. Bright and winsome, sharp and intelligent, she didn’t seem like a student defending herself to her teachers but a professional in discussion with her equals. Of course, he thought, watching her soar through the conversation with aplomb. Of course.

As they talked, the people at the edges of their little group began to realise something extraordinary was happening and dropped their own conversations to listen in, eager puppies catching scraps from the table. The boldest of these, a baby-faced boy in an ill-kept gown who reminded Fitz a good deal of himself in his first year at university, slunk his way into the circle and managed, somehow, to offer a question.

“Bless my soul, Mr. Gill, I didn’t see you there.” The dean looked through his glasses tolerantly. “That’s a very good question—a bit simplistic, perhaps, but the right one to ask. Who wants to answer Mr. Gill?”

“Let me,” Fitz said, having heard implied in the question a technical mindset the chemists wouldn’t be able to respond to. Fully aware that it was a side-note to the thread of conversation, at first he tried to keep his answer brief but got carried away as he watched the light of understanding slowly dawn in Mr. Gill’s eyes. “So you see,” he wound up, “it’s a mistake to think of it as a one-to-one ratio, or a line of dominos one knocks over. It’s more like shotgun pellets, blasting out and having an impact in a variety of fields.”

Silence followed. Fitz looked around the circle uneasily, unsure what was going on behind the thoughtful, considering expressions that met him. “Is that right?” he asked, directing the question to Simmons, still at his elbow.

“Just right,” she said, squeezing his arm. “Of course it should be, as I believe you came up with the idea in the first place.”

“No, it was you.”

“Fitz, please, it was you. I remember distinctly.”

“Well,” he shrugged, “we likely did it together.”

“Yes,” she agreed, her smile softening into a shape he had never seen before. “We often are better together.”

He couldn’t look away from her. God help him, he literally could not look away. Her words hung in the air, lingering there like perfume; Fitz breathed them in, felt them go to his lungs and his brain, felt the knowledge creep warmly through his whole body. They were better together. He had thought so for a long time, but to hear her say it in front of people she admired and respected—to say it with that _look_ , as if there were no one else but the two of them standing there—made him feel invincible.

Miss Morse cleared her throat. “Sir, didn’t you say you wanted to introduce Miss Simmons to the Chancellor? He’s just come in.”

“Oh! Oh yes. Miss Simmons, do you mind? And perhaps Miss Morse will join us?”

He did not actually hear the crack of a broken connection as she looked to the Master and professed herself delighted to be introduced to the Chancellor, but he did feel it. As soon as they walked away, someone from the fringe of the circle fell on Dr. Banner, leaving Fitz alone with Mr. Gill. “Thanks,” the younger man said, “that was very clear. Is she right to say you came up with it?”

“More right to say we both did.”

Another man shoved into the conversation. “Can you answer another question, then? We didn’t like to ask with everyone standing there.”

“Sure,” he said, and before he knew it he was surrounded by a throng of Freshers, taking notes on their cuffs and laughing at his bad jokes and generally hanging on his every word. It was surreal and not a little heady. Looking across the room to where Simmons was in deep conversation with the Chancellor and two other award winners, he caught her eye and raised unbelieving eyebrows. She winked a response.

Mr. Gill followed his eye line and looked at him wisely. “You’re here with Miss Simmons, right?  Are you…a relation?”

Is that what it looked like? “Do we sound like we’re related?” he asked, trying to make a joke of it.

“No,” Mr. Gill said, “but she’s never come with anybody to one of these fetes before and it’s not because no one has tried.”

“She’s like a divine being,” one of the other men said, gazing at her adoringly.

Fitz had an irrational desire to punch him. “We’re friends. We have similar interests. We understand each other.” They all looked at him, unconvinced. “We were going to a lecture at the Royal Science Academy before this came up. I rather forced her to bring me, if you can believe it.” They did not, he could tell, despite the fact that it was the truth.

_I’m sorry I can’t come. I’m being given an award by the Society._

_Simmons! That’s wonderful._

_Yes, but awfully inconvenient. I’ve nothing to wear._

_What about the thing from the party at—_

_Fitz! That’s entirely the wrong season. Anyway, that’s not the only problem. I’m asked to invite someone._

_Oh?_

_But there’s no one here I’d care to spend the whole evening with._

_I’ll come._

_Oh, Fitz…won’t you be terribly bored?_

_I’ll manage._

_If you’d—_

_Simmons. I’m coming. Unless you’d rather—_

_No! No. I’ll be glad to have you._

So he had provided the escort, and she had somewhere found a dress—a beautiful dress, the colour of claret, that made her eyes look like honey and her skin like silk. And it was a million times better than a lecture.

Mr. Gill cleared his throat and Fitz suddenly realized he was staring. He opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again. “Well, it’s been fascinating, but I think I’m going to get a drink. When you go down, come find me at Stark—I do have a little pull in some departments.”

As he anticipated, the buzz his offer generated allowed him to retreat to the bar unfollowed, leaving him alone to bring himself back under control. These were her peers, for God’s sake; she didn’t need him goopily making an utter fool of himself in front of everyone she knew. He shouldn’t be goopy about her, anyway. As far as she knew they were just friends. One didn’t stare longingly across the room at one’s friend. It just wasn’t done.

He sidled up to the bar and ordered a whisky-and-soda, which he threw back quickly before ordering another. That would be enough for tonight—a looser tongue would not be a benefit this evening. He sipped the second slowly, mind wandering.

Suddenly, someone grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him around. An aggressively handsome man with a chiseled jawline and dark, brooding eyes glared at him, eyes slightly crossing. “Excuse me, this is a private party.”

“Yes,” Fitz agreed, pushing away his hand, “I’m attending.”

 “I don’t believe you,” the other man said, shoving again. This time he didn’t respond, merely taking another drink. The man did not like this and shoved harder. “Someone brought you? Who brought you?”

The idea of bringing up Simmons to this drunk was intolerable. “There’s no need to bring a lady into this.”

“Wait.” The man stopped, appearing to think very hard. “I saw you earlier. You’re with Simmons.”

“ _Miss_ Simmons,” he corrected, hackles rising at contempt in the other man’s voice.

The other man went on as if he hadn’t heard Fitz, swigging something amber. “Tip for you, mate: get out as soon as you can. I used to go with Simmons. Then she threw me over. For science.”

Fitz smiled. He couldn’t help it; that was such a Simmons thing to do. Of course she wouldn’t keep this boor around when there was science to be done. Unfortunately, that was exactly the wrong response to the man now forcibly gripping his arm. “You think it’s funny? You think it won’t happen to you? Just watch. I adored Simmons. I _adored_ her. But she wouldn’t adore me. She wouldn’t leave her rotten experiment to come watch me play cricket. How could a man love a girl like that? I told her so and she broke it off.”

“Good for her,” Fitz said. “Why would you ask her to put you over her work? It’s important. And it’s important to her.”

The other man looked at him disgustedly. “She’s a girl. Her work isn’t anything to mine. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”

Apparently the whisky was having a more serious effect on him than he thought, as he nearly punched the other man in his aristocratic face. Instead, he shoved his glass aside and stood. “You’re lit, man. You need to go home.”

“She will!” the man called after him as he left the bar. “She’ll never choose you.”

Fitz stopped and turned around slowly. “I know that. And I don’t care if she never does. I am lucky to know her whatever way she likes.”

He made his way back into the ballroom, slipping through the crowds in search of her. It was silly, he knew; he had hardly been apart from her twenty minutes and she likely hadn’t even noticed he was gone, but he suddenly had to see her all the same.

“Fitz!”

He turned at the sound of her voice. Spotting him, she had stepped away from yet another person wishing to congratulate her and was coming toward him with both hands out. Goodness, she was beautiful. Incandescent, maybe, was a better word. “Where have you been? Mr. Gill said you’d gone to the bar?”

Meeting her halfway, it was a struggle to keep from stroking the back of her hands with his thumbs. “Just a drink.”

“Oh no,” she laughed, “I’ve driven you to the bottle. You must be bored to death.”

“No,” he protested. “No, only—only one does get tired of talking with people one doesn’t know.”

“Yes,” she agreed fervently. “I rather feel like I don’t want to talk to anyone ever again. Except you, of course.” She laughed again, then sighed, wrapping her hands around her neck. “Oh, Fitz. Do you know, with everyone wanting to talk to me, I haven’t even had one dance?”

If he was a braver man he would rectify that immediately. It was on the tip of his tongue, almost falling out, when he caught sight of a tall, balding man heading directly their way. “Incoming,” he sighed, just before the man called “Miss Simmons!”

“Oh, lord, that’s Mr. Garrett. Is there any way to pretend I didn’t hear?”

“Five, four, three, two—”

She screwed on her practiced smile just as Mr. Garrett called her name again, oozing up to them with an oily grin. “I just had to make sure you had my congratulations. We’ll all be watching your future career with interest.”

“Thank you, I do appreciate—”

“Yes,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard, “it’s always amusing to see how long our girl-graduettes try to make a go of it before succumbing to the inevitable and becoming nice little wifeys. The faculty has quite a little sweeps of it. I don’t mind telling you I’ve paid for more than one holiday that way.”

He winked at Fitz, acknowledging the exclusive joke between superiour beings, and Fitz felt his blood boil. “Miss Simmons’s work should make her path easy, I think. I know Mr. Stark is already aware of it.” An exaggeration at best, but he couldn’t let this wart get away with it.

“Of course, of course. But you’d be surprised, in the end, how many girls who swore up and down they were after a career decide they’d really rather have a man instead.”

Fitz was about to spew a good piece of his mind at the bastard and his archaic, chauvinistic ideas when a gentle pressure on his arm brought him to heel. Looking over at Simmons, he saw the tight, brittle smile that meant she was fighting very hard to keep control. “ _My_ ideal,” she said, “is both a career and a man, and I am fairly confident I can find one who wants the same thing. When that man proposes, I will be sure to send you a card. Excuse me, please?” And she stalked off into the crowd, every line of her back dignified. Fitz stayed just long enough to hiss “If you talk to her like that again, I’ll find someone to kill you” before following, shoving people aside with his shoulder to return to her side as quickly as possible. “Are you all right?” he asked, not missing the way she wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands.

“Yes.” She set her jaw, staring out at the dancers. “I oughtn’t let it bother me—I ought to be used to it by now. Sometimes, though—”

“I know,” he said, lightly brushing her shoulder. “But you’re right. He’s an idiot.”

“He’s not the only one.”

“No,” he agreed, thinking of the man in the bar. And why? Simmons wouldn’t be herself if she wasn’t doing science, and who would want anyone else? It didn’t take two atoms of sense to see that the privilege of knowing Jemma Simmons was worth more than everything you had. He would quit his job before he asked Simmons to quit hers. “But not everyone is.”

“Is that so?” She looked up at him out of the corner of her eye, a glimmer of mischief glinting. “Who isn’t?”

“Oh, er—that is—there are—” His incoherent sputters, while successful in keeping him from beating his chest and shouting “Me!”, never coalesced into an actual sentence and he trailed off, staring at a scuff on his shoe. Beside him, she sighed wearily.

“Can we leave now, Fitz? I’m so tired of pretending.”

“I thought you wanted to dance.”

“Yes, but not as much as I want to be alone. Or with you and no one else, which is almost the same thing.” 

“Dance with me then,” he said, suddenly bold.

“With you?”

“Yes, with me.” He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think I can, do you?”

She was skeptical. “Only, I’ve never seen you.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t.” Tugging her towards the floor, he grinned himself. “Come on, Simmons.”

“Oh, well, if you insist.” Then, with an air of having won something, she gathered her skirt and came easily into his arms. From this angle, her eyes were deeper than a loch; she smelled like lavender and carbolic acid; he had never been this close to her and that was probably better for him all the way around. It was very difficult to keep the proper distance. Every time he managed a coherent thought, she seemed to have drifted closer to him. He didn’t even realise he was doing it.

“You’ve been keeping secrets from me.”

“What?” he asked, startled. How could she possibly—

“You dance divinely. Why have we never done this before?”

Because he couldn’t help falling in love with her no matter what he tried to avoid it; dancing was just tempting fate. “There were always other things. Other chaps.”

“If you had asked,” she said, “I would have dropped them like a brick.”

“Well. Naturally, as I offer you science as well.”

Her brow furrowed. “Science? What has that got to do with—”

“Met a man in the bar,” he said, not sure why he was bringing it up. “Tall chap, dark hair…said he had gone with you for a bit.”

“Oh, Grant?” She recoiled, nose wrinkling. “That was unfortunate for you. He’s never gotten over me. Well, I think it was really more he’s never gotten over the blow to his pride.”

“He said you threw him over for science.”

“Of course!”

“That’s what I told him.”  She smiled, something soft in it. Pretending they were in danger of running into another couple, he pulled her in closer. “What I couldn’t figure out,” he continued, not meeting her gaze, “is why you ever went with him in the first place. He seems a cad.”

“Oh, Fitz.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I was a Fresher and silly. He was handsome and fascinating and I was overwhelmed. But mostly I think it was because I hadn’t met you yet. I didn’t know that...” She trailed off, smiling a secret smile, and he found himself leaning forward to catch the end of her sentence. But when she continued, it was on another tack entirely. “Remember when we met at that awful party?”

“Yes.” She had been vibrant and gay; he had been horribly uncomfortable; somehow she overheard him say something about Einstein’s rebuttal of quantum physics; they had talked until two a.m.

“I came up and broke it off with him the next day.”

“Well, good. I mean, it happened a long time ago, but I’m glad—I mean, that that conversation—I mean, you could do better than him. If you wanted.”

“Yes,” she said, amused, “I rather think I could.” There was a beat. Then, looking fixedly over his shoulder, she said in a rush, “Fitz, you know you’re my best friend in the world, don’t you?”

His heart burst into bloom. “Yeah, of course. And you’re mine.”

“But—”

“But?” he prompted, trying not to stare at the lip she had caught between her bottom teeth.

“Oh, nothing. Never mind.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, the only still spot in the chattering, burbling room. Fitz felt like they were the eye of a hurricane: the world could rage on around them but here, in this moment, everything was peace. He thought he could be contented with this for his whole life.

The song drew to an end. Amidst the polite clapping, Fitz made the executive decision not to ask if she wanted another dance, holding her hand firmly as the orchestra struck up another, slower tune. She didn’t seem to want to speak, content to be drawn closer, to rest her head at his chin. Fitz took a deep breath, perfectly happy.  

“I love this song,” she said presently.

“What is it?”

“You don’t know it?”

“How would I know it, Simmons?”

“I don’t know. The girls on my staircase play it night and day.”

“Well, we don’t listen to much music at Stark. Has it got words?”

“Yes.”

“What are they?”

She pulled back from him, listening and humming until the orchestra reached the end of a phrase. Then she began singing softly:

_I’m sure you’d hate to hear_

_That I adore you, dear_

_But grant me just the same_

_I’m not entirely to blame for love_

It didn’t mean anything, Fitz told himself. It was just a coincidence. He was wishing something was there and inventing it, no doubt helped along by the whisky. He knew that deep expression of hers as she studiously did not meet his eyes; she was thinking about something completely different to what she was saying. That happened all the time. Had she left a Bunsen on?

_You’d be so easy to love_

_So easy to idolize all others above_

He was about to make a joke about the awkward phrasing, but something about her face kept the words from tumbling out of his mouth. No longer pre-occupied, it had shifted into an expression hard and bright that he had never seen before. Only, no, he had, hadn’t he? All night long, whenever she looked at him. It was—what was that word—

_So worth the yearning for_

_So swell to keep the home fires burning for_

_Yearning_. He got tripped up by the word, recognizing it was just the one he had been looking for. But no, that couldn’t be right. “Simmons, I—” he started, not knowing what to say but knowing he needed to break this moment or he was going to make a fool of himself, again, to her. But she silenced him with a look, a deep unfathomable look that he could never reach the bottom of but knew entirely all the same.

_We’d be so grand at the game_

_Carefree together that it does seem a shame_

_That you can’t see your future with me_

_Cos you’d be so easy to love_

The song kept playing, but neither of them moved. She just looked at him, hands clasped in front of her, her heart in her eyes; he looked back, perilously close to tears. How, he asked himself, how had he been so blind?

“Jemma,” he said, relishing her name in his mouth. “Jemma.”

"Yes, Fitz.”

“What would—um, what if—” He grabbed both her hands, looking down at them as if they held the secrets of the universe—which they did, of course. At least all the secrets of his universe. “If you—”

He had thought her eyes couldn’t be any more full, but somehow she found room for exasperation. The sun dawning in her smile pushed a few tears he hadn’t seen onto her cheeks. “ “Just say it, Fitz.”

“I think,” he said, wondering if she was actually sparkling like a diamond or if that was just a side-effect of his tears, “it would be very easy to see my future with you. So. What would you think about that?”

For two heart-stopping seconds, she didn’t say anything. Then, just as he was beginning to wonder frantically if he had completely misunderstood, she moved his hand to her hip and lifted hers up to his shoulder. Automatically, he followed her lead. “I would think,” she breathed into his ear, “that it’s about time. I’ve only been throwing myself at you all night.” He jerked back just far enough to gape, at which she laughed up into his face and drew his head back down. The tickle of her voice, low and breathy, made his knees shake under him. “Honestly, Fitz, are you a genius or not? Now, I’d kiss you but I don’t want to give Garrett any satisfaction. So as soon as the dance is done we’re leaving, all right? Miss Morse has already told me the best spots to avoid proctors. How does kissing madly in a punt sound?”

**Author's Note:**

> Academic gowns, in case you were wondering, look very similar to Harry Potter robes except that they have strange little sleeves that hang off one's elbows. It was required to wear them at university functions during the period.
> 
> I don't know that the Mitre had a ballroom (it doesn't now, having been turned into a restaurant) but it was the grandest hotel of the time, so I pretended it did.
> 
> The title and the last line are borrowed from Dorothy L. Sayers, the author of my absolutely favorite book which happens to be set at Oxford in the 1930s. Thank you, Sayers!
> 
> The song Simmons sings is Easy to Love, by Cole Porter.


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